This past weekend the council and town staff traveled to
Greensboro, North Cackalacky for our annual council/staff retreat. The main
focus of the retreat was on infill development and redevelopment.
Redevelopment is exactly what it says – the redevelopment of
existing development to include the demolition of old buildings to make way for
new construction, or the repurposing of older structures into new uses.
Infill development is the development of vacant land that is
surrounded by existing development.
Infill and redevelopment is, and will continue to become
more of an issue in Cary as there isn’t much undeveloped land left available
for new development (roughly 15%) and as older development ages out (Cary Town
Center Mall for example).
While Greensboro and Cary are very different cities, Greensboro
has experience dealing with many of the challenges of redevelopment and infill
development, and provided a good example for us to learn from. What did they do
right? What went wrong? What would they do differently if given the
opportunity?
We began the retreat with a session to better familiarize
ourselves with planning updates in the Triangle region. We first heard from Mr.
Lee Worsley, Executive Director of the Triangle J Council of Governments about
how communities can better work together to achieve their goals. Mr. Bob
Geolas, President and CEO of the Research Triangle Foundation spoke about
Research Triangle Park’s plans for a mixed use development project at the park.
And after that we reviewed the land use plans of other Triangle communities and
adjoining jurisdictions to not only better understand their plans are, but also
how that might impact what we do here in Cary.
We then visited Center Pointe, a redevelopment project in
downtown Greensboro that used to be the home of Wachovia Bank. It is a 17 story
building that had sat vacant for a number of years and was falling into
disrepair. The building was ultimately redeveloped into luxury condos and has
become a huge success story for downtown Greensboro. The first floor of the
building also includes a restaurant. This was a very impressive project, and
while Cary thankfully does not have any abandoned 17 story buildings, we do
have a number of empty shopping centers and buildings that we are concerned about.
Center Point was a good example of how a city and a developer working together
could achieve something remarkable.
The building also provided a great look at Greensboro’s new
downtown library which has a parking deck adjacent to their new Downtown Park
and arts center. Sound familiar? ;-)
After our visit to Center Pointe we heard from Greensboro’s
Planning Director, Mrs. Sue Schwartz, about their efforts to amend their
development ordinances, policies and procedures to better incent redevelopment
and infill development in and around Greensboro’s downtown area, and how they
worked to manage a number of challenges to include inadequate infrastructure,
community opposition/cultural tension and the economic viability of such
projects.
Some of the key takeaways include:
·
Growing inward is harder than growing outward as
the development of greenfield sites is much easier than redevelopment of
existing properties. Ordinances and policies must be different for
redevelopment vs new development.
·
Change can be very uncomfortable for folks.
·
Public/Private partnerships are an important
part of redevelopment.
·
Historic preservation is also important – you
don’t have to knock every building down to accomplish something great.
The following day began with a bus/walking tour of downtown
Greensboro to see firsthand and learn more about many of their redevelopment and
infill projects. I was impressed at how well they blended into their
surrounding communities – you wouldn’t have guessed it was new development.
Now the fun part, right Ed? ;-)
Afterwards we headed back to the hotel for a hands-on exercise
with our staff. Each council member was teamed up with a few staff members and were
given a large aerial photo of an actual 18 acre site in Cary that we would like
to see redevelop one day….. and Legos…..yes, Legos.
The Legos represented different types of development, and
each Lego block represented 2500 sq ft. Red blocks were commercial, blue was
office, orange was multi-family and so on… Each council member then redeveloped
their site by placing the different color Legos where they thought they were
best suited on the site. We also had to account for things like road access,
parking requirements, buffers etc…
Here is my development.
The orange is multi-family very similar to what we have at
the Arboretum to include structured parking wrapped with residential. The
yellow is townhomes with garages underneath. The red and blue blocks are
commercial on the first floor with office above. The tall blue building
represents a hotel or office building and the dark gray around it represents
structured parking. The green is a small park and/or gathering space, and last
but certainly not least, the single red buildings are a Chili’s and a Red
Robin. Hey, this is my development remember? ;-)
So, ya, it needs work. I only had an hour to work with ok? And
trust me, nobody’s Lego development was perfect. But the jist of this exercise
wasn’t to design a perfect development – it was to better identify what is important
to us, and more importantly our community, when it comes redevelopment or
infill. What types of uses do we want and where? How dense are we willing to
allow those uses to be? Structured parking or surface – or maybe both? Things
like that.
Each council member then presented their development to the
group and explained why they developed it the way they did, and then we talked
about it.
It was a good discussion with few surprises - it’s not like
we haven’t had similar discussions before. We prefer a mix of uses and
development that creates a sense of place. We value protecting the character
and charm of adjacent communities but could support increased densities where
appropriate. We support transit friendly development yet understand that the
car is and will continue to be the predominant means of transportation for
folks. We love structured parking. We would consider public/private
partnerships. We expect public gathering spaces – stuff like that.
We also understand economics. We get that in order for
redevelopment to occur, it has to be economically viable. Like it or not, the
reality is that if the developer can’t make a buck, he aint gonna build it; and
while market forces might be beyond our control, regulatory reform isn’t.
Cary’s land development ordinance has historically applied
to new, green-field development – and the overwhelming majority of Cary’s
development over the last few decades has been exactly that. But if we want to
encourage the redevelopment of older, underperforming sites in Cary – and we do
– it will require changes to Cary’s land development ordinances to make it
happen.
With the ongoing Imagine Cary process to include our recent
worksession to discuss the Eastern Cary Gateway Plan, it was a very timely
discussion and I look forward to seeing the work that comes of it.
Thanks so much to our town staff for all their efforts to
make this year’s retreat a success and to the city of Greensboro for their
hospitality. It is greatly appreciated.
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| 2016 Town of Cary Council/Staff Retreat |